Fox News: "Historians Pretty Much Agree" That FDR Prolonged the Great Depression

But, OK - let's say you want to cherry pick the unemployment numbers like a right-wing pundit. Let's say that, as Rauchway notes, you are a conservative dittohead totally comfortable dishonestly "quot[ing] only the unemployment rate for the recession year 1938 and count[ing] government employees hired under the New Deal as unemployed." Shouldn't you be blaming conservative ideology, and not New Deal-ism, for those numbers? After all, as Paul Krugman recently explained to a stunningly ignorant George Will on ABC News, 1937-1938 was the period Roosevelt dialed back the New Deal in the name of conservative demands that he stop spending:

Americans generally pick Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents. Why?

People usually say it is because he presided over two crises in American history - the Great Depression and World War II.

I contend that the limousine liberal FDR not only presided over these events, but was responsible for: 1) decimating the U.S. economy through government intervention; and 2) lying to the American people about their so-called interests in World War II.

FDR's meddling wasn't confined to 1933-1945. After his death, the New Deal programs continued (and continue) to destroy wealth and prevent growth. Unfortunately, modern-day Democrats worship FDR's socialist programs and modern-day Republicans glorify the destructive statism of "the Good War."

Krugman on FDR and the "Clean" New DealPosted by Bill Anderson at December 26, 2008 07:26 AM

It's Friday, and Paul Krugman does not disappoint. Today, we read that the New Deal of FDR not only helped revitalize the economy, but also was an exercise in "clean" government. Yes, you cannot make up this stuff:

F.D.R. managed to navigate these treacherous political waters safely, greatly improving government’s reputation even as he vastly expanded it. As a study recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research puts it, “Before 1932, the administration of public relief was widely regarded as politically corrupt,” and the New Deal’s huge relief programs “offered an opportunity for corruption unique in the nation’s history.” Yet “by 1940, charges of corruption and political manipulation had diminished considerably.” How did F.D.R. manage to make big government so clean?

A large part of the answer is that oversight was built into New Deal programs from the beginning. The Works Progress Administration, in particular, had a powerful, independent “division of progress investigation” devoted to investigating complaints of fraud. This division was so diligent that in 1940, when a Congressional subcommittee investigated the W.P.A., it couldn’t find a single serious irregularity that the division had missed.

F.D.R. also made sure that Congress didn’t stuff stimulus legislation with pork: there were no earmarks in the legislation that provided funding for the W.P.A. and other emergency measures.

Last but not least, F.D.R. built an emotional bond with working Americans, which helped carry his administration through the inevitable setbacks and failures that beset its attempts to fix the economy.

Hats off to Lew Rockwell and his friends, for doing their best to debase libertarian ideas by associating them so closely with some of the the worst and scariest people ever to scuttle under a rock. (There’s more under the archives labeled “The Fever Swamp.”)Now I’m going to go and wash my hands. The experience of sorting through all the dirt that Lew Rockwell churns out has that effect on me.

Read the links in my signature for my feelings about your politics, Barry.

How is it that 'liberals' forget that America suffered greatly, economically, from the beginning of FDR's reign, until after his death? Isn't it common sense to say that--at a minimum--his programs were COMPLETE failures? NOTHING improved in America until after WWII, and the shrinking of govt that accompanied the end of that evil war?

FDR and the End of Economic Liberty--http://www.fff.org/freedom/0891a.asp

The Roosevelt Myth--http://www.insmkt.com/roosevelt2.htm

Politicians caused and worsened the Great Depression--http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20081208/OPINION/812079983/1021/NONE&parentprofile=1062&title=Politicians%20caused%20and%20worsened%20the%20Great%20Depression

Tough Questions for Defenders of the New Deal--http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim1.html_________________________________________________________________________________________________________"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson—and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W.W.* The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States—only on a far bigger and broader basis."President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Col. Edward Mandell House, November 21, 1933, F.D.R.: His Personal Letters (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce 1950), p. 373.

This book1 portrays Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a Wall Street financier who, during his first term as President of the United States, reflected the objectives of financial elements concentrated in the New York business establishment. Given the long historical association—since the late 18th century—of the Roosevelt and Delano families with New York finance and FDR's own career from 1921 to 1928 as banker and speculator at 120 Broadway and 55 Liberty Street, such a theme should not come as a surprise to the reader. On the other hand, FDR biographers Schlesinger, Davis, Freidel, and otherwise accurate Roosevelt commentators appear to avoid penetrating very far into the recorded and documented links between New York bankers and FDR. We intend to present the facts of the relationship, as recorded in FDR's letter files. These are new facts only in the sense that they have not previously been published; they are readily available in the archives for research, and consideration of this information suggests a reassessment of FDR's role in the history of the 20th century.

This statement makes Franklin Delano Roosevelt appear as another Andrew Jackson, contesting a bankers' monopoly and their strangle-hold on American industry. But was FDR also an unwilling (or possibly a willing) tool of the Wall Street bankers, as we could infer from his letter to Colonel Edward House, cited in the epigraph to this chapter? Clearly if, as Roosevelt wrote to House, a "financial element in the larger cities has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson," then neither Hoover nor Roosevelt was being intellectually honest in his presentation of the issues to the American public. The gut issues presumably were the identity of this "financial element" and how and by what means it maintained its "ownership" of the U.S. Government.

http://reformation.org/wall-st-fdr-ch1.html [My words]: This article is really the "Motherlode" of info that reveals FDR to be nothing more than another Corporatist President who did the bidding of the "financial element" he refers to. The Emergency Banking Act was really HIS version of today's Partriot Act. Anyone rational and independent-minded SHOULD be able to see that he was the GWB of his time. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The biggest 'liberal' myth of all about the GD/ND is that Hoover's "inaction" was a root cause; that his stubborn adherence to laizze-faire economics worsened things. HOGWASH! [me again]

From: Debating the New Deal--http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1503/article_detail.asp: ...FDR aide Rexford Tugwell would claim in a 1974 interview that "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."